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Kingdom Death: Monster Review – Survivors of Death 1
🕑 Added 2024-09-20 09:00:05 +0000 UTC
This product is best experienced with Gambler's Chest and Frogdog Expansions.
A celebration of survivors from Kingdom Death: Monster. Featuring four updated sculpts of strangers struggling to survive the darkness. This set includes a range of rules and tools representing the ways survivors might harness the world around them for their own gain. From indomitable resources to carve from the toughest monsters, to seed patterns of inspired design, to the knowledges of the arc survivors, this box celebrates all the advantages to be found in this meager existence. – KDM Shop Blurb
The Survivors of Death 1 custom box includes:
- 1 x Azure Fighter plastic miniature
- 1 x Bullet Dancer plastic miniature
- 1 x Hospitalar plastic miniature
- 1 x Investment Sniper plastic miniature
- 1 x Load Glossary card
- 4 x Hard plastic 30mm insert
- 4 x Hard plastic 30mm bases
- 4 x Large matte print of the original concept artwork on heavy card stock
- 1 x Coated Femur Indomitable resource card
- 1 x Bully Hammer pattern card
- 1 x Bully Hammer pattern gear card
- 1 x Load Glossary card
- 4 x Character cards: The Impetuous, Natural Healer, The Unfettered, The Versatile
- 1 x Ecstatic Dance Collective Cognition card
- Freeform Dancer I, Freeform Dancer II, Freeform Dancer III knowledge cards
- 1 x Sundering Crossbow seed pattern card
- 1 x Sundering Crossbow seed pattern gear card
- 1 x Agility Fighter strain fighting art
Survivors of Death is a bit of an odd release in some ways because it is a blending of Indomitable Survivors, Echoes of Death and Knowledges bundled up into a single package. I suspect this release will be the new model that replaces Echoes of Death now that Fighting Arts have been “semi” force retired due to the prominence and popularity of Arc Survivors/Knowledges and how poorly fighting arts interact with that system.
The Models
All four models in this box are sweet as heck; the Investment Sniper is wielding the new Sundering Crossbow and is decked out in Marchioness Armor (quick minor quibble, she should have been wearing Earl Armor, because we don't have that armor worn by a female character and also it's better suited to the Crossbow's mechanics), the Hospitalar is wearing Bullfrogdog Dog armor and has the new Bully Hammer (no notes, she's perfect); the Azure Knight is wearing Frogdog Armor and has a Vertebrayonet (cute pose, fine loadout I guess) and the Bullet Dancer has well I don't know, I've looked and there are People of the Sun elements to this armor set (the coins, the geta and tabi all tie in nicely there), but both it and the twin Katars don't match up with anything so maybe she's a teaser for the future?
The sculpt on each of these is gorgeous, and while a bit more care and attention to what hybrid sets are missing miniatures would be nice (Investment Sniper) I think all of these models look great and I'll certainly be using at least two of them on the table at times. Maybe three when we see what the Bullet Dancer is using for armor/weapons.
Character Cards
The very first thing I am thrilled to point out is that we don't have any Legendary character cards here and that is a really good thing. The classic Character deck has only 1 legendary card in a deck that is 25 cards minimum (and as there is only 1 legendary card you're a fool if you make the deck any bigger than the absolute minimum size so you can maximise your chances of getting the legendary card. We've already got two incredibly strong Legendary Ability cards in Weapon Master and The Red Survivor (I'll be covering that next week once I've spent a bit more time with it) and also Glow gave us a third one which it is already really hard to justify using. So getting anything else is a huge positive.
Here we have two impairments (The Impetuous and The Unfettered) and two abilities (Natural Healer, The Versatile). Natural Healer is a simple and excellent ability that any survivor can benefit from, it's a full heal to any one hit location at the start of your act, once per showdown. That's very fair, very balanced and because you need to pop it at the start of your act you are rewarded for playing a game of chicken with the Monster (Or having Stone Skin because you're a Marrowism Gigachad). I think it's about perfect and a strong contender for going into the Character deck in any campaign.
The Versatile allows you to; if standing at the end of your attack spend 1 survival to activate a weapon in your gear grid that you have not activated this round; limit once per showdown (LOPS). This one is intended to synergise with the Seed Pattern weapon, but the honest truth is I think they undercooked this one. Making it require a completed attack, plus you need to still be standing and you need to have a second weapon in your gear grid (not F&T which is outside of your gear grid) that you have not used this round and making it LOPS is too cautious. Far, far too cautious. Surge does that with less hoops, and while you could absolutely use The Versatile to attack, attack and then activate another weapon (like say a Shield Block) for anything, not just an attack I'm not super excited by this.
However, there are exceptions, which is in People of the Sun, because they don't get access to Surge and instead leverage Devastating 1 and Legendary Lungs to gain their extra tempo so there may be extra value available here (and also in normal campaigns with survivors who either generate extra damage above normal with their attacks or who have once per showdown abilities on a weapon like the Skyharpoon. In short; it's not exciting, but it does have a place.
The two impairments are also really nicely thought out; The Impetuous gives you Frenzy on arrival (Limit Once Per Lantern Year - LOPY), resulting in a survivor who cannot ever use weapon proficiencies (but they can level them up) and also misses out on knowledges, survival activations, fighting arts and similar (unless you have other ways of using them). There's a couple of neat things about this, first of all the Sweet Battle ability (See the Truth) will restore access to your surge and also if you have an encounter before the main showdown you won't Frenzy during that as you are limited to once per lantern year. That means this impairment becomes a net positive when you run into encounter monsters and that's a sweet little interaction.
The Unfettered limits you to not departing while wearing heavy gear or gear with a printed armor point value of higher than 2. That still leaves a lot of early game armor sets and allows you to carry heavy gear cards (anything other than armor keyword). This is an impairment that sets you into certain specific builds, but those builds are not a big deal, there's plenty of good light armor options and even armor-free builds. So while it is certainly a negative, it is one that makes a survivor provide interesting and unique pathways through the game rather than turning them into 'leave this one in the settlement, they suck'.
I really like all four of these options and I will be swapping some of them in over the current selection. For example I am very keen to remove 'The Dying' from my character card pool because it keeps leading the settlement down the 'abuse the system with broken Homicide philosophy survivors' and I would like to shut that pathway off a little bit more.
Yeah, love all of these and think they are grand additions to one of the most enjoyable elements of the game, the Character deck.
Seed Pattern Gear - Sundering Crossbow
Cost: 2x endeavor, 1x iron, 1x broken lantern, 1x perfect organ, 1x bone
Usual note on the overuse of Perfect resources here, I won't get into it in too much detail though because this is what happens to generic seed gear a lot (Also I have more to write about it in the Bully Hammer section, so I'll get into it there).
The Sundering Crossbow is an interesting, but ultimately medium weapon. We've have a bunch of weapon types that do not include Weapon Proficiencies and I've found that every single one of them is ultimately disposable as far as I'm concerned. I craft them and then unless they are end game gear they tend to get replaced within a few years because Weapon Proficiency progression is engaging and fun. Crossbow now joins the Weapon Proficiency waiting room alongside Saw and Thrown weapons, each of which has always been something I have used in the early game only when no other options were available or because they are the best option early on (Bone Darts).
Without Crossbow Proficiency it is hard to fully assess how potent the Sundering Crossbow will turn out to be, but in isolation it is a ranged weapon that functions best when combined with a slow heavy control playstyle (Hit Location control) because it lines up very well against Parry/Super-Dense hit locations and due to only having a maximum of one of these per settlement (due to pattern rules) you want to get as much out of it as possible if you've spent the resources and gear slot on it.
This weapon has a new form of Cumbersome with Load, where instead of requiring you to stand still, instead you must spend an activation to place a prep token on the weapon and then spend an activation and a prep token to attack. It is effectively attacking at half the speed anything else does, hence why I mentioned above that it wants a heavy control playstyle.
This weapon is also very monster dependant. It's fantastic against monsters with lots of Parry and Super-Dense hit locations (WITH Critical wound options) and pretty average outside of that. The best monsters to run this against are the various Knights, because Parry is a very powerful hit location trait and this crossbow in combination with a Lucky Charm (which you are always going to use because the crossbow wants 2x blue puzzle affinities and can connect to a Lucky Charm) will work really well against those hit locations. However, even there you'll find that many knights have a low number of suitable hit location targets. For example the Lion Knight has 2 of 14; the Flower Knight has 4 of 18, the Dung Beetle Knight has only 4 despite being the super-dense monster because its Century Carapace hit locations have no critical wound on them and the other super-dense monster, the petrified Lion God has 5 Super Dense locations but only 3 of them have critical wounds for a total of 3 in 15 or (1 in 5). It's an ability that looks super exciting on paper, but in practice is really situational and absolutely asks for players to be using HL Manipulation/Scouting in order to get reasonable use out of this weapon.
Ultimately this means that I think the Crossbow is another Seed Pattern card that results in a dud draw from the deck more often than being a hit. You can absolutely try and craft a campaign where this weapon will be at its strongest; the God-Hand and Gold Smoke Knight both offer a number of suitable hit locations where Luck will work best and you can slip in as many of the super-dense/parry options in the other slots as you can manage. However, it doesn't really feel worth it, this weapon is decently accurate and has a reasonable strength for the middle portions of a campaign but there are so many better things you can be doing with the resource, slot, activation and opportunity costs this represents. It is a super expensive weapon in almost every way imaginable and I don't feel it justifies all of those various costs even if it is super cool.
One to revisit when/if we get a Crossbow Proficiency and otherwise it is at best highly situational, I'm going to be bummed when I draw this one from the Seed deck until we get more content that works with this.
Strain Fighting Art – Agility Fighter
Fighting Arts as a whole are in an odd place; especially when they are bundled alongside Knowledge cards as that is a system which makes them redundant and very difficult to use alongside. I am personally of the opinion that Strain fighting arts should have been given the same exception that Secret Fighting Arts (SFA) got where gaining Fighting Arts (FA) for survivors was concerned. This oversight has resulted in a lot of clashes and friction between wanting to play with cool fighting arts that have been unlocked through effort vs. an entire system which is so much better than fighting arts (for myself) that I do not want to go back to playing without them.
The current solutions I have been testing are to essentially either house rule that the 1st Fighting Art a survivor gains ignores the “Vaultless” story event (an event that essentially deletes fighting arts from the game) or; if you want to be a be more cautious have Strain Fighting Arts get counted as Secret Fighting Arts for Vaultless. Either way this is not a clean system and it has made for the first core house rule I have permanently adopted in order to get to use Arc Survivors and Strains together in my personal/friend group campaigns (for testing I play strictly to the rules as written).
The milestone for this particular strain fighting art asks for the core game cards of [D] Hyperactive and [FA] Rhythm Chaser (once again making it hard to unlock with Arc Survivors) to be on a survivor who deals the killing blow on an L3+ Monster. Outside of Arc Campaigns this is not a super difficult ask because Drums “tutors” Rhythm Chaser onto any survivor you choose and Drums is a Tier 1 Innovation so it is easy to get. You're simply waiting for something to drop Hyperactivity onto a survivor and then get to the stage where you're killing L3+ Node 1 or 2 monsters which usually occurs around the early teen lantern years at the latest.
The Strain Fighting Art is Agility Fighter and it is a clean, simple and elegant little fighting art. Giving +1 Evasion Token on arrival if you have a Dagger or Sword in your gear grid (Regalism synergy on a fighting art, kind of funny) and also when you attack with a Dagger/Sword you add your total evasion to your strength for the attack. The clear main use for this FA is on an evasion tank, in particular the Sword & Board style of play typified by Off-Tanks but it also provides an option for a front line tanking character to run daggers if the dagger has a useful enough ability to justify attacking with it over blocking.
There's really not too much more to discuss on this, it is on the lower end of power for Strain Fighting Arts, but there is something to appreciate about a clean, elegant design that provides a clear path for a survivor if it is gained early on.
ollective Cognition & Knowledge Cards – Freeform Dancer (“Node 2”)
This Collective Cognition offers us another 16 Collective Cognition milestone; this is the slot for the Node 2 monster knowledge, which at the moment is either the Smog Singer 'Relentless' or the Screaming Antelope 'Herb Grinder'. I've not reviewed the various monster Knowledges yet, but the brief version is that Relentless is very good if you have a lot of monsters that move away during attacks (Smog Singers, White Lions etc) and Herb Grinder is very good if you have ways of ensuring that Acanthus Plants are present in every showdown (The Gatherer Character card, Bone Sickle/Herb Gathering, Satchel – Flower Knight etc). Herb Grinder is the current front runner for best option because a Bone Sickle is easy to craft/bring along and max level Herb Grinder is a full heal for a Fresh Acanthus.
Freeform Dancer is based around providing defence against Ranged attacks. Ranged attacks are not a super common form of attack from monsters at the moment. The Tyrant (People of the Stars specific Nemesis) has a bunch of them, the Crimson Crocodile rarely utilises one and as far as I can remember, that is it because most “ranged” attacks from monsters are massive AoE/Synchronic Attacks and Freeform Dancer does not work against those except at the highest level (and you need to be targeted by ranged attacks and ignore hits to reach level 3). We can run some alternative gear that ignores hits once we're past Freeform Dancer I though, which helps progress to the third stage.
That means this Knowledge is immediately in a rough spot; you should absolutely not include this over the Node 2 options we have at the moment because they are both stronger and triggered more often. However, if you have a campaign where your Node 2 monster is Spidicules or the Flower Knight, both of which currently do not have a Collective Cognition (CC) card then you could consider putting this in; likewise if you're playing People of the Stars this is a reasonable option because the Tyrant can get you through the first level in a single showdown (the level 2 one will be the earliest window to do this because of how CC works). Then at level 3 it can work against Synchronic monsters like The King (who is the most likely monster you'll face with the L3 version due to how long it may take to get this levelled up).
All of this means that this Knowledge feels like it is designed to “solve” a problem that doesn't exist at the moment. It is kind of like a form of future proofing, but because at the moment the places where this can be utilised are quite limited. If for some reason you play People of the Stars with Arc Survivors (something that isn't recommended until the Stars Philosophy comes out) then I can see an argument for using this, but if you're running Spidicules as your Node 2 monster I would probably skip on including this in the unlocks at all because it is is a hassle to level up at the moment (making it chaff bloat for the Knowledge deck).
Of course the future bringing more ranged monsters will change this situation for sure, but I think that this knowledge has been released too early and as such for most players it will sit in the box for a number of years before getting used.
Indomitable Resource & Gear – Bully Hammer
When I opened up the Frogdog box and saw that there was only two Indomitable Resources in the box; the very first thing I uttered was “I am going to be really mad if they release Frogdog Indomitable Resources/Patterns as white boxes any time soon.” Little did I know or even dream that it would be THIS soon and honestly I am sort of angry about it. The Frogdog box is expensive enough that this Bull Hammer should have been a part of the release, and if it wasn't intended to be that then this boxed set should have came out in 2025 so it at least felt kind of like we were not being denied part of the newest expansion in order to sell Survivors of Death. Optics and timing matters, you don't release a paid expansion for your paid expansion within a few months of each other.
I am sure that the intention was not as malicious as it looks from our standpoint; but the simple fact is, putting an Indomitable Resource for the most recently released Expansion in the next major white box release is not a kind move for consumers. However it is possible that this decision can foster legitimate a feeling that part of the Frogdog expansion was held back from us in order to pad this box out further and increase sales even if if that was not the actual intent.
We could have got an Indomitable Resource for any of the 1st Generation Quarries who do not have one; such as the Dragon King, Dung Beetle Knight or Flower Knight and that would have felt reasonable and pro-consumer because those sets have been out for a long time and are ripe for upgrading. As such, I really cannot call this anything other than a kind of unintentionally shitty move by APG and I think it is important to call it out because things like this (and the Painters minis + game content) because this kind of release on this schedule is a bad decision that needs to get some pushback from the community.
I've said my piece now and for the rest of this section I am going to review the Bully Hammer in a vacuum without letting the heinous origin of this card taint my assessment of it in isolation.
Gained from the Coated Femur which is dropped by the L3+ Frogdog; the weapon itself requires the Bullfrogdog to be defeated because that is how you unlock the Tuskworks. This means at times you may well get this Femur but not be able to use it because you don't have the crafting location and you're not yet able to unlock the Bullfrogdog. This means we have some extra hidden pre-requisites to crafting the weapon, that's fine but it is something you need to pay attention to while navigating a Frogdog campaign.
Bully Hammer
Cost: 1x Coated Femur, 2x Copper, 1x Perfect Hide, 2x Organ
Requirements: Tuskworks unlocked (Kill Bullfrogdog), Song of the Brave and kill L3 Frogdog (to Unlock Bullfrogdog)
First of all let us provide a series of rude gestures at yet another Perfect Hide crafting requirement. Sure if you're making generic stuff and want to gate it I get using the Perfect resources there (even if it is completely over used now); but this is a weapon that already requires multiple hurdles to be jumped. So the crafting cost is dumb and I hate it.
The Bully Hammer on the other hand though is a delightful weapon design; it's a (2/10+/8) weapon that is designed to synergize with the Tuskwork Armor set and Club Weapon Proficiency. The 10+ accuracy may look awful, but it is something that can be mitigated by the Bullfrog Armor set bonus, Bullfrog Bracers and any other +accuracy options such as the Scrap Lantern.
This means that Onslaught (which doubles your wound total when you hit with all attack rolls) is a lot more likely to trigger than one would think at first glance. This means you'll quite often be getting +1 armor to all hit locations and because that is a small bonus for the portion of the campaign that this weapon is unlocked in triggering it often matters.
The affinities are designed to help with activating the Bullfrog Bracers, but as the armor set itself does that pretty effectively they're not very important. The Bullcharge Shield still offers better affinity synergy than the Bully Hammer, but any affinities are better than no affinities.
At the end of it all though, this hammer is little more than a big pile of stats for a Bullfrogdog tank survivor, it's fine. It does its job, but it isn't exciting and unusual in the way that most Indomitable Survivor releases have been in the past.
Final Thoughts
The Indomitable Resource is of course a disappointment, but that is only because of the monster choice and the weapon being so generic in design that it feels like it could have come in the Frogdog box. The overall Survivors of Death concept that contains miniatures plus 1x Seed Pattern, 1x Knowledge, 1x Strain Fighting art and 1x Indomitable Pattern on the other hand is a good idea for a white box release.
I do mildly recommend this set, recommending it any more strongly than that doesn't feel right because outside of the Character cards nothing here is a slam dunk. The Bully Hammer is in the wrong box, the Strain Fighting Art feels stranded in the past, and both Freeform Dancer and the Sundering Crossbow feel like they're waiting for future content to come out that gives them meaning. Got nothing but praise for the Character cards and models mind you, they're great.
Still, while this is a wobbly start I do think this release model is an excellent way to give us extra content; especially if it is used to support the older expansions rather than bring extra content to the newest toy.
As such, the value for boxed set this is variable, if you do not have the Frogdog then a portion of it of it is going on the 'shelf of shame' and same with the Knowledge as without the Gambler's Chest it doesn't work at all. This leaves the Seed Pattern (which can be gained at survivor Insight), Character Cards (which work best with the GCE but can be used without it, ish) and the Strain if you're either willing to rarely ever see it and of course the lovely miniatures. That means the value here is immensely variable; if you don't have the Frogdog AND the Gambler's Chest I would not purchase this set at all; if you are missing the Gambler's Chest then I think it's a reasonable purchase because the Knowledge cards are the weakest part of this release, the Character/Seed Patterns can be used without the GCE and the Strain Fighting Art also doesn't play nice with the main GCE system of Arc Survivors.
Overall this individual box is more than a bit wobbly, but the release model has potential and I think I can recommend this box set for deathstyle gamers/hobbyists (my term for Kingdom Death Lifestyle gamers) who play a lot and are not afraid of house rules to smooth out the more questionable/rough decisions.
However for newer players I would prioritise the known quality expansions (Gorm, Frogdog, Black Knight, Sunstalker, Dragon King, Slender Man and Dung Beetle Knight) and come back to this only when you're starting to use the Frogdog and you've reached the Bullfrogdog unlock. For players who do not play at least once a week I think this is poor value as there's a lot of very situational content that you may only see over multiple different campaign set ups and if you play only once every few months then I guess you're a collector, so you're getting it regardless.
Survivors of Death I is available on the store at this link: https://shop.kingdomdeath.com/products/survivors-of-death-1
Comments
James
Another excellent review! I purchased Survivors of Death since I’ve enjoyed all of the Echoes. Love the content, Hopefully next set we finally get some male survivors!
a warm, awful feeling
great review as always!! 🖤
